Tuesday, July 31

Oklahoma!

Hey, Barry Tramel, your state's claim to fame begins with having the country's first parking meters and ends with Brian Bosworth. You've got an arena that isn't up to NBA standards, and even your patron saint, Clay Bennett, says it needs to be replaced within a couple of years, meaning your city is going to be staring down the barrel of his Relocation Shotgun just like we are now.

Ordinarily, the offended citizens of a city rise up in defense of their fair city when an outsider criticizes it, but when the critic lives in Oklahoma, well, you just kind of laugh it off.

Tell you what, Mr. Tramel, when you've got NCAA football and basketball teams, an NFL team, a MLB team, and an NBA team, and have supported them for 30+ years, then we'll talk.

14 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I'm not sure what you're taking offense at with this article. I'm a Seattle basketball fan, and didn't find anything wrong with this article. In fact, I think he's exactly correct. The team is well-poised to be fantastic... in a couple years, just when they may be headed out of town.

Agree with Anonymous. Did you link to the wrong article, dear editor? There's not really any Seattle-mocking in the whole piece.

And what with all the left-leaning, rain-soaking, coffee-drinking, doc-marten-wearing, willie-bloomquist-cheering, super-bowl-referee-conspiracy-theorizing, south-king-county-white-trashing opportunities available, it seems to me Seattle made it through the article relatively scot-free.

Maybe I'm oversensitive, but I counted three times when he talked about how blase Seattle is being about losing their team.

If you only read this article, you might not pick up on it, but Oklahomans are getting a little too snide for my taste the way they refer to Seattle fans as not caring about keeping their team. It's as if they were some generous uncle who lives across town that would watch over the wayward child much better than his parents do. It just bugs me that they think they could do a better job placating Clay Bennett than Seattle could, because their 1 1/2 years of hosting an NBA is equivalent of 40 years in Seattle.

As for thin-skinnedness, I don't think Seattle is even in the same ballpark as Portland or Vancouver, two places where I've lived.

Just as an example, Vancouverites still get in a lather about how Jim McKay called Vancouver a "village" back in 1979 when the Vancouver Whitecaps were playing for the NASL title. And don't get them started on how the NBA purposely screwed up the Grizzlies.

As for thin-skinnedness, I don't think Seattle is even in the same ballpark as Portland or Vancouver, two places where I've lived.

Just as an example, Vancouverites still get in a lather about how Jim McKay called Vancouver a "village" back in 1979 when the Vancouver Whitecaps were playing for the NASL title. And don't get them started on how the NBA purposely screwed up the Grizzlies.

Trust me, we've got nothing against the regular folk of Oklahoma--one of my favorite bands is the Flaming Lips! We just get a little upset when a few people start salivating at our loss, especially since so many of us are so emotionally tied to the team. We grew up with the Sonics. In fact, Nussbaum literally did--he had a Jack Sikma growth chart in his room!

"Pathetic corpse-picking vultures" - that's one of the best lines I've read in a long time.

I'm too close to the issue to objectively gauge how apathetic the general NW populous is concerning the Sonics plight (especially since I live in San Diego), so I'm wondering how that is accomplished from Okieville?

They desperately want a team down there - it's too bad that they think Bennett is operating altruistically for the benefit of their community. They will continue to revel in any Sonics bad news thinking they are inching closer to a relocation. The fact that they are excited about inheriting an up and coming team is kind of like waiting for your rich Uncle to die so that you can pick over the bones of his estate.